It’s becoming more and more clear with each successive announcement that James Cameron isn’t messing about when it comes to the new Terminator film. He’s heavily involved creatively, he brought on Deadpool director Tim Miller, it’s being treated as a direct follow up to Judgment Day, and he confirmed that Arnold Schwarzenegger would be back (well, of course). However, the latest announcement is arguably the most exciting yet.

THR reports that Linda Hamilton will reprise her iconic role of Sarah Connor, and it doesn’t sound like this is going to be a cameo (like Terminator: Salvation‘s voice recording…). No, Cameron is pledging that we’ll see her in full-on action heroine mode.

“As meaningful as she was to gender and action stars everywhere back then, it’s going to make a huge statement to have that seasoned warrior that she’s become return,” he said. “There are 50-year-old, 60-year-old guys out there killing bad guys but there isn’t an example of that for women.”

Story details are being kept under wraps, but we know that Cameron and Miller worked on the story together before handing it over to a writers’ room that includes the ever-prolific David S Goyer (Blade, Da Vinci’s Demons, both Zack Snyder and Christopher Nolan’s DC movie universes), Dark Angel and Hemlock Grove‘s Charles Eglee, Justin Rhodes (the upcoming Green Lantern Corps) and Josh Friedman, the creator of the underrated Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles.

Of course, it won’t all be returning characters, as Cameron said “We’re starting a search for an 18-something woman to be the new centerpiece of the new story. We still fold time. We will have characters from the future and the present. There will be mostly new characters, but we’ll have Arnold and Linda’s characters to anchor it.”

The untitled Terminator reboot is set for release in 2019. Keep up with the latest genre news with the new issue of SciFiNow.